


Small Realizations

by viiemzee



Series: The Karnstein Backstory [3]
Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-14
Updated: 2014-11-14
Packaged: 2018-02-25 09:55:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2617589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viiemzee/pseuds/viiemzee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a small thing where Laura and Carmilla talk about them realizing that they liked girls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Small Realizations

“So, buttercup, riddle me this.”

She looked over at her roommate – girlfriend, she had to keep reminding herself to say ‘girlfriend’ – and raised an eyebrow, giving a small half-smile.

“Yes, Carmilla?”

“How long have you...you know, known?”

“Known what?”

Carmilla gave a small laugh, a throaty one that always made a small tingle pass down Laura’s spine and to her legs, making them shake a little bit. She looked Laura square in the eyes, and gave a small shrug. “I mean, you know, that you like girls.”

“Oh.”

She looked away, giving a shrug of her own, and placing a hand on her throat, where the small scars from Carmilla’s bit weeks before puckered slightly.

“I...don’t really think there was a realization.”

“Really now?”

“No, really. I mean, did _you_ realize you liked girls in 1698?”

Carmilla laughed again and moved off her bed and to Laura’s, lying down on it and opening her arms, inviting Laura to lie on top of her. Once the smaller girl had done just that, her heart beat reverberating through Carmilla’s body, Carmilla’s hand stroking Laura’s hair gently, she answered.

“Well, 1698 wasn’t the best time for that sort of thing. I mean, girls married boys and boys were expected to provide for their wives, that was pretty much it. Didn’t mean that a bunch of us didn’t follow those rules, though. The friends I had, we were all wealthy and stupid and loved to party. With partying came the alcohol, with the alcohol came...well, the experiments.”

“Experiments?”

“Yeah. Ludwig and Marcellus, they were _very_ fond of each other when they got a bit too much champagne in them. And everyone becomes a little bit more attractive when you’ve got a bit of opium in your system, let me tell you.”

“How many girls were you with?”

The question startled Carmilla, her hand stilling half way to Laura’s head, but she rested it down gently and shrugged. “I dunno. Life before becoming a vampire is all...dark and blurry. I can’t remember much unless I really, really try. I do remember this one friend I had though, named Melissa. She was beautiful, absolutely stunning. Had courts full of men asking for her hand in marriage. Had I been a guy, I probably would have been one of them. But I wasn’t; instead I was her best friend. Which was just as good, because had I been a guy, I wouldn’t have been allowed over at their castle as often as I was.”

Carmilla saw Laura blush slightly as she let her imagination run wild with the thought of what exactly her girlfriend could have gotten up to with this Melissa. Carmilla smiled, making a small ‘mm’ as she breathed out, and closed her eyes.

“But that was a long time ago. I thought it was normal, for girls to do that with other girls, for boys to get drunk and do stuff with other boys. We all thought it was normal. Our parents never said anything about it – they were all too busy arranging marriages for us anyway. It wasn’t until the 1940s, or so I hear, that things started getting bad for homosexuality. I wasn’t around then but...”

“Where you around in the sixties though?”

“Oh yeah. I threw bricks and Stonewall. I marched in rallies. I attacked police officers. Fun times, actually!”

Silence fell between the two of them, punctuated only by Laura’s breathing and Carmilla’s occasionally sighs as they lay in a comfortable silence together, Laura slowly feeling herself drifting off to sleep...

“Your turn.” 

“Huh?”

“Your turn, Laura,” she repeated softly, almost as if she was afraid to break the glass of silence that had surrounded them comfortably, making them forget about the danger outside their room. “When did you realize?”

It wasn’t as if she had never thought about that before – when _had_ she realized? – but it was so hard to actually form the words. Especially when it was Carmilla.

“I dunno. It was like, last year. Last year of high school and all that, and there was this girl in my class, didn’t like me very much. Or at least that’s what I thought. It was weird, we weren’t friends or anything. I was Class President, everyone knew me. She was one of those popular rich girls with a hot boyfriend, everyone knew her. But for some reason she just didn’t like me.”

“I sense a cliché.”

“It is,” Laura laughed, sitting up and staring at the wall, reliving the moments she was talking about, letting Carmilla’s hand run gently down and up her back again. “She had a boyfriend and everything, but one day we were in the locker room after gym and she just kissed me. And it was so weird, but it also felt so right. Turns out she pretended she didn’t like me so that I wouldn’t find out she actually did, like...like me a lot? I was confused but I went with it. She was gorgeous, we met up a few times but when I realized that she was still actually dating Robert, I called it off.”

“Very chivalrous of you.”

“I had to. It’s not right to do that to someone.”

She felt rather than saw Carmilla cock her head to one side and shrug. “Fair enough.”

“But she was the one who made me realize, I guess. After her, it was just...girls everywhere. I never realized how pretty they were until I kissed one, and then everything sort of made sense. Like why guys were nice to have just as friends, or why my favourite teachers were always women. And then I met Lucille, and if there was ever a doubt in my mind...” Laura paused, letting out a soft ‘phew’ and shrugging slightly. “She expelled it.”

“She must have been really something,” Carmilla said, and Laura thought she heard a little bit of snark in her voice, before realizing that she was being genuine, listening to her girlfriend rattle on with her life-discovery-story, and she smiled before falling back down to lie on Carmilla again, burying her face in the crook of her neck.

“You’re not gonna tell me anymore?”

“Nah. I have you now,” Laura mumbled, kissing Carmilla’s neck softly, right where her pulse should be, and wrapping an arm tighter around her waist. “It doesn’t really matter how I realized I like girls in the first place, anyway. As long as I got here in the end.”

Laura was sure that, had she opened her eyes to look at Carmilla right there, there’d be a pretty happy smile on her lips. 


End file.
